/m/nationals

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

I've read some informed sources as stating that your digestive system can only process so much protein, anything above that level puts an additional strain on your liver to flush it out and doesn't benefit you anyway. So it's wasted money on the protein additives and needless strain on your digestive system. Otherwise, he seems to have a pretty healthy approach overall.

But I don't know, Harper seems to have an unusually high number of days when he is under the weather with some malady or another. Exercise does decrease the response of the immune system, so sometimes you just have to lay off your workouts for a few days, as tough as that must be for a professional athlete at this level.

I wonder how much body mass he will lose over the course of the upcoming season? I hope he can play through it without being sidelined by injury; that should be quite the show.

@3, there's divergent opinions on that. The current consensus is that 20-30 grans in a meal is the most your body can absorb, but there are some who put it much higher or lower. Alan Aragorn for instance is a nutritionist who works with natural bodybuilders, and his opinion is that the body can absorb as much as it can before passing through, though bias abounds on both sides of the issue.

Regardless, you'd be hard pressed to find an athletic nutritionist who doesn't think an athlete looking to add muscle should get at minimum 1g/lb of lean body mass, and most push that to 1.5. For a 200 lb man at 15% body fat that's a ton of protein, 170-240 g/day. That's almost impossible to achieve without protein supplementation. For reference lean meat is only giving you about 9 grams per ounce, so that's 19-26 ounces of lean meat a day. Not to mention you'd still need to fill in Carbs and dietary fat. Your quickly getting to the point where you just can't eat anymore, and the protein shakes make that much easier.